Speaker
Mr Deepak Nanda
Research Scholar
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
Leadership, State and Politics of Development Policy in India: A Study of the state of Odisha
Abstract Narrative
Ever since India’s colonial freedom, it has evolved as a democratic state and progressed significantly. The rate of poverty has decreased substantially (Sen & Himanshu, 2004); peoples’ standard of living has improved. However, when it comes to equity, a few reaped the benefits of growth exceptionally while the most disadvantaged sections continue to live with deprivation and poverty (Dreze & Sen, 2013). It has come to a situation where the richest 10
per cent possess 80 per cent of total wealth (Hardoon, 2017). In inclusive development, it is at the position of 62nd among the emerging economic countries (World Economic Forum, 2018). So the fruit of development has become polarised and concentrated among a few caste, classes and regionally. Besides, social development has been a priority in India’s planning and development since its beginning. Similarly, when it comes to the state of
Odisha, the most historically disadvantaged social groups like the Scheduled Castes and Tribes still contributes the highest in poverty, and illiteracy. They remain behind the other social groups. Moreover, the politics and power of the state remain in the hands of a few upper castes and class, industrialists, king dynasty, landlords. In this context, the paper explores the question of politics and leadership influencing the development policy and practice using the theoretical perspective of politics of development. The objective is to analyse the nature of state power and leadership influencing the development policy. In doing so, it will address the question of political culture—institution, political ideology, leadership—established, maintained and sustained over the decades and their relation with the nature of development policy. In doing so, the paper adopts historical analysis along with some qualitative interviews of key informants as the method of data collection.
Biography
I am a Senior PhD Scholar in the School of Social Work at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India and a former visiting scholar to the Department of Social Work, Lund University, Sweden. I also hold an MPhil and post-graduation degree in Social Work from TISS, Mumbai and Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, India. Currently, I am working on “politics of development and regional disparities in Odisha” as my PhD research and an editor at Critical Edge international student magazine. My research and teaching areas of interest are poverty, inequality, state and development. As for credentials, I have authored five academic articles in national level peer-reviewed journals and seven op-ed pieces in newspapers, web portals of national and international repute. I have also presented research papers in both the national and international seminars both inside and outside India.
Mr Tatenda Goodman Nhapi
Independent researcher
Affiliaited to the Erasmus Mundus MA Advanced Development in Social Work
Exploring the gridlocks and milestones in Southern Africa’s inclusive development
Abstract Narrative
Based on review of secondary sources of literature, the major intention of the paper is to demonstrate what intractable challenges in Zimbabwe, Eswatini and Lesotho have impeded mainstreaming of pro poor focused social development interventions. Despite existence of progressive social development agendas on the three nations policy frameworks and abundance of natural and human resources, vulnerabilities and poverty remain pervasive. Furthermore there has been ongoing implementation by state and non state actors of interventions with desired outcomes for transforming vulnerable persons as the elderly, Orphans and Vulnerable children, People Living with HIV and AIDS and Persons with Disability amongst others. Opportunities for realisation of a more robust socio-economic transformation agenda in each of the three focal countries are assessed and articulated in detail whilst noting existing opportunities and constraints. Within the current domain of the COVID 19 pandemic the paper pays particular attention to a number of enduring but important questions that seem crucial to understanding and addressing the Southern African social development dilemma. For example, why do some countries seem to have robust social protection programmes for the vulnerable like Lesotho and Eswatini’s acclaimed Old Age Grant and how in the context of Zimbabwe’s social security programmes on paper are vibrant but fragmented in implementation? The paper’s objective is to interrogate the crucial policy and institutional factors behind such differences, and what state and none state development actors can do to embed pro- poor development interventions that holistically enhance social functioning of the vulnerable populations? Finally, the paper offers pathways through which Lesotho, Eswatini and Zimbabwean development actors as social workers can innovatively adopt a leading role towards mobilising communities’ inert capacities towards harnessing homegrown grassroots strategies for social development outcomes attainment.
Biography
This will be added at a later stage.
Dr Jason Ostrander
Assistant Professor
Sacred Heart University
Global Human Rights and US Immigration Policy: The Congressional Policy Practice Social Work Interns Work with Federal Legislators to Improve Child Welfare Policy
Abstract Narrative
While the Council on Social Work Education (2015) includes policy practice as one of nine core competencies expected of social work graduates in the United States, students are provided few applied opportunities to engage in this form of practice. Weiss-Gal (2016) found a continuing need for experiential learning in policy for social work students. As such, field education should provide students with opportunities in policy practice.
Limited literature exists that identifies where and how social work students engage in policy practice; instead, policy-oriented field placements are few and often limited to students who concentrating on agency-based policy or community organizing. Dickinson (2007) found that only 33% of the 171 BSW programs surveyed had policy practice placements and found the distance to state capitols significantly correlated with the likelihood of social work programs having policy practice placements.
In a survey conducted by Wolk, Pray, Weismiller, and Dempsey (1996), found that only 20% of bachelor of social work programs and 43% of master of social work programs offer political placements. In a more recent survey of field directors at 225 social work programs, 11% of BSW students, 8% of MSW foundation students, and 16% of MSW advanced standing students were enrolled in macro-oriented placements that included a policy and political social work focus (Pritzker and Lane, 2014).
Also, the respondents identified three barriers in their qualitative findings:
1. That students do not request political placements;
2. That field faculty do not believe political practica meet the requirements of Generalist placements; and
3. That there are a paucity of social work supervisors qualified to meet CSWE
mandates.
In a COVID-19 world, we have learned to embrace technology, which can be used to address many of the Field concerns listed above and, in the process, providing social work students with access to political practice field placements, including CPP. The CPP has capitalized on the opportunities of technology to answer both the need for innovative field placements in the COVID-19 era and to create political practice opportunities. As part of CPP, 7
Sacred Heart University social work students’ field contracts outline their direct practice with staff members of U.S. Congressional offices. The CPP social work students work in support of several legislative initiatives but have focus most of their energies on the Flores Settlement Agreement (FSA) of 1997 and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS).
In CPP, social work students are pioneering political policy internships within a model that is itself pioneering. In CPP, social work students work in teams not only to work at a Federal level, but also to embrace and define how technology is central to providing dynamic, real-time field experiences in political policy practice. In short, the CPP technology-based model revolutionizes social work student access to CPP and potential to countless other relevant, ethically necessary Field experiences.
Biography
Jason Ostrander, Ph.D., MSW, BSW, is an Assistant Professor at Sacred Heart University’s Department of Social Work and Director of the Congressional Policy Practice Internship. He has a Bachelor of Social Work degree from Elms College and both a master’s and a doctorate in social work from the University of Connecticut School of Social Work. He currently teaches on-ground and online courses in policy, research, and integrative practice. His scholarly work focuses on political social work, civic and political participation of social workers, child welfare policy, social work education, integrated social work practice, and community-based participator research methods. Dr. Ostrander currently serves on the Research Committee and Advisory Board for the Nancy A. Humphreys Institute for Political Social Work and is Director of Research for the Congressional Research Institute for Social Work and Policy. Dr. Ostrander’s practice experience comprises political social work at the local, state, and federal levels. This experience includes serving as a congressional aide to a former U.S. Congressman.
Dr Anna Wolkenhauer
Post-doctoral Researcher
University of Bremen
Social Policy and State Formation: Comparative insights from the Social Cash Transfer and ‘FISP’ in Zambia
Abstract Narrative
Even though social policy constitutes one of the state’s core functions, the connections between social policy and state formation remain underexplored. After a period of neoliberal state retrenchment, since around the turn of the new millennium, states have assumed a more central role in development discourse and practice. In social policy, new state interventions have been introduced. Yet, it is not clear what kind of state practices are possible in social policy; and how states themselves are undergoing a process of transformation while they carry them out. In this presentation, I reflect on some findings from my PhD research, in which I developed an answer to the question: how is the state reconstituted within social policy after retrenchment?
My analysis was based on empirical research in Zambia, which spanned several years with the main data collection conducted between late 2016 and early 2018. I have analysed interview and ethnographic material with a Grounded Theory methodology and have derived several processes by which state formation occurs through social policy. In this presentation, I will give an overview of my findings with a focus on the differences between the social cash transfer (SCT) and the farmer input support programme (FISP). I argue that in both programmes, state formation can be observed, by which I mean the expansion of the central state into the peripheries of the country. This happens through various ways: by increasing knowledge, awareness and responsibilities; and by laying out avenues for communication with marginalised citizens. Overall, however, these processes entail a dialectic: due to the enshrining of the neoliberal consensus that states be reduced to a minimum, while expanding its reach, the state simultaneously manifests its boundaries, too.
The findings of this project underline the importance of investing in social protection – not only for its stated aims of making societies more just and equal, and for reducing poverty; but also because social protection, and social policy more widely, contribute to the growth and strengthening of state-society relations. These processes, however, are hampered by what has become a neoliberal common sense.
Biography
Post-doctoral researcher; PhD on social policy in Zambia; now works on agric. and food
Dr Isaac Chinyoka
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
University of Johannesburg
Theme 7A
Megan Bryer
Development Economist
Theme 7A
Biography
Since 2019 Megan has been a senior economist at the National Treasury. She has worked for the Centre of Social Development at UJ and the Gauteng City Region Observatory at Wits. The focus of her work has been in development economics. Before working independently she was an associate in the development economics practice of Genesis Analytics. She is particularly interested in developmental issues relating to urban areas, and the disproportionate impact of poverty, inequality and unemployment on women. She has a MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics. She writes here in her personal capacity.